[  BALTiC Retail SD x264 Releasing Standards 2012  ]


                       Effective date 2012-??-??


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 0. Intro
.
    Here it is. Retail SD x264 ruleset for the releases of/from Baltic countries.
    Includes Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian and Russian language releases. Go to
    Wiki to learn more about Baltic states. LT EE and LV are the official
    languages and Russian is a 2nd unofficial language because of past historic
    events. Russian is valid only for releases that contain Baltic subs and
    such retail dvds are very common in the Baltics.

    Decided to go for crf x264+.mkv rips because the quality is twice as good
    and the size is smaller than .avi. And all of you know that XviD and .avi is
    a dead combo nowdays and x264+.mkv is the real deal, we don't live in the
    early '00s, technologies are getting better and better and we need to move
    on. So thank you .avi and xvid for everything and now you can retire.

    We can't follow those outdated official XviD rules anymore. We've had enough!
    We hope others will follow our path and release official Retail SD x264 rules
    for English too.

    We were inspired by the new TV SD x264 ruleset and have stolen a couple of
    ideas :)

    And sorry for the retarded English :)


 1. Video

  - Resizers: Lanczos4 and Spline36.
  - Deinterlacers: Yadif is recommended.
  - No watermarking, intros and etc.
  - Resolutions: 640-720.
  - Sources with horizontal source resolution of 720 after crop must be cropped
    as needed and only height shall be resized to maintain proper AR using mod2.
  - mod2/mod4/mod16. Upscaling/downscaling width is forbidden.
  - AR error 4%.
  - Overcropping/undercropping the picture not allowed.
  - 
  - Suggested command line:
    x264.exe --crf ## --preset slow --level 3.1 --colormatrix bt709 -o out.h264 in.avs


 2. Audio

  - AAC VBR only.
  - Average bitrate ~96-192kbps. Lower bitrate is good for talk stuff.
  - Nero encoder is recommended.
  - Only one audio track per release.
  - No out of sync.
  - Audio stays with same channels as in source. 2.0 and/or 5.1


 3. Codec

  - x264.
  - Must be up to date. Max 30 days.
  - No false shit!
  - Custom matrices not recommended. Use it if it's really good.
  - CRF 17-23.
  - Video bitrate must not be more than 2000kbps. A normal final size for an
    average length movie should be near/around 1gb.
  - Level 3.1.


 4. Framerate

  - Constant.
  - Default retail rates.


 5. Container

  - .mkv
  - mkvmerge is recommended.
  - Can be muxed with .mkv: .mp4 AAC, .srt or .idx subs.


 6. Tagging

  - DVDRip.x264 and BDRip.x264.
  - iNTERNAL and iNT.
  - WS if duping a FS release. FS not allowed after WS.
  - Examples:
     White.Men.Cant.Jump.1992.LT.DVDRip.x264-Group
     Its.All.Gone.Pete.Tong.2004.EE.BDRip.x264.iNT-Group
     Xotabych.2006.RU.REMASTERED.DVDRip.x264-Group
  - All other extra tags allowed in global xvid rules are allowed here too.
  - If Russian release has only one Baltic subtitle it can be tagged with ESTSUB
    and etc.


 7. Subs

  - Text based format is preferred (e.g. SubRip, SubStation Alpha, etc).
  - Duping with another subtitle is not allowed. Release a subpack.
  - If a release (especially Russian) has more than one Baltic subtitle, then
    every sub should be disabled by default, so user will choose the sub he needs.
  - No subs in separate files and folders. Mux them.
  - No .srt and .idx together in a same release.


 8. Samples

  - ~60s sample from a final rip in a Sample folder.


 9. Packaging

  - 15, 20, 50MB rars. 1MB = 1,000,000 bytes
  - Compression: Store.
  - No passwords and shit.
  - Recovery not recommended. 1% max.
  - .nfo and .sfv is a must.
  - No any dupe filenames.
  - .nfo must have all the normal information about the release. Technical details
    and a link.


10. Propers

  - Propering allowed only for logical reasons. For technical flaws and etc.
  - Russian movies must have at least one Baltic subtitle. Can be propered if
    missing.
  - Proper release must always have an explanation in the .nfo.


11. Internals

  - Internals are allowed only for duping protection. Every int must follow the
    ruleset.
  - Int if DVDRip.x264 is pred and you want to pre a BDRip.x264 and etc.


12. Fixes

  - NFOFix, SAMPLEFix, SYNCFix and others.
  - Must be noted in the .nfo.


13. Misc info

  - This ruleset approves previously nuked Baltic related releases. This is the
    reason why the ruleset was written.
  - Only LT, LV, EE and RU + Baltic subs releases follows the ruleset.


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    Signed: PAPAi, EMX, TvD, EiSO, TeGijA, PPi